Posted tagged ‘mothers’

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“Put that down! You don’t know where it’s been!”

March 23, 2017

Cold, it’s bone chilling cold! Last night I took Gracie out and she just walked around. I kept exhorting her to pee, but she preferred to sniff the ground and check out the house next door. I got so cold I couldn’t take it anymore so we went inside to the warm house. She got up on the couch and went to sleep. A couple of hours later I took her down the back stairs to the yard. I have to lead her down any stairs as she is afraid ever since her fall. I face her and go down the stairs backward holding her halter. That works just fine, and it only takes a couple of minutes. I figure that’s a small price to pay for a loving, funny member of the family who happens to be a dog.

I’m looking for adulation accompanied by a drum roll. I have finished all my inside chores. The laundry is put away, the bed has clean sheets and the litter is changed. I even went to Agway this morning for all my pet supplies. My to-do list is much smaller and only has a couple of errands left.

Mothers bend the truth. Think back to all those warnings our mothers gave us. I never swallowed gum fearful of that giant gumball forming in my stomach. A certain look could make my face freeze and going outside with a wet head could cause a cold.

Some things my mother said were downright silly. I didn’t ever think money grew on trees, and I didn’t at all believe huge potatoes could grow in my dirty ears. After she said that once, I laughed. Big mistake! I ended up in my room. She, after all, was the boss.

I don’t remember what the warning was but my sister told her grandsons they had to be potty trained by the time they turned three. They were. One was even earlier than three. My sister is following in my mother’s footsteps.

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“There is no easy way to train an apprentice. My two tools are example and nagging.”

April 13, 2014

The morning is cloudy, but I don’t mind because the sun will appear later. It is chilly but not cold. I love saying that. I think of it as the difference between winter and spring.

The kid down the street rides a four-wheeler. He went from a tricycle to a bike with training wheels. I have no idea how extra wheels train a kid to balance on a two-wheeler. It is one of the mysteries of life. I didn’t have training wheels when I was a kid. I had my mother. She held on to the back of the bike as it wobbled, and I pedaled for all I was worth hoping to stay upright and moving. I remember my mother rode my bike first to show me how easy it is to ride. I was amazed. My mother could cook and clean but I never really thought too much beyond those. That she could ride a bike was a revelation. We were on the side street in front of my house. I was afraid she’d let go, but she didn’t for the longest time. When she finally did, I just kept on moving. I was a bike rider.

Okay, next I’m talking feminine undergarments. If you want to leave now, please do. Just hop on down to the next paragraph. Remember you were warned. I never had training wheels on my bike, but I had a training bra, the purpose of which flummoxes me even now. What was I training them to do? No tricks ever came to mind. Later, when I was much older and out of training, I did think of tassels but that’s a whole different conversation and profession. How long we had to train was arbitrary. Each mother made that decision. I didn’t train for too long. I must have been a quick learner.

My first job was at a Woolworth’s, the summer after high school, and I had to be trained. It was ridiculous. I was shown how to work the cash register and had to prove I could make change. The right way to stock shelves was explained and demonstrated. I was glad for that because I probably would have put the articles upside down or backwards on the shelves except for that in-depth training. I really hated that job, but I lasted the whole summer.

I had to student teach my senior year in college. Nobody called it training though that’s exactly what it was. There I was standing at the front of the room facing an entire class of kids who knew I was inexperienced and suspected I was scared. They were right. My lead teacher watched for a few weeks, gave me pointers and then she let go just as my mother had. I had no trouble staying upright, but I still needed to pedal for all I was worth.

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“Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.”

April 4, 2013

The sun is shining but it is not warm, a bit of a deception I think. The sky is deep blue and beautiful. Lots of birds are taking advantage of the free food at the feeders. There is even a waiting line.

Hunky dory was part of an answer in the crossword puzzle today. It got me thinking. I don’t remember the last time I even heard anyone say hunky dory which is too bad as it has a great sound when said out loud, and it is one of those phrases which defies description. It’s a context guess but a tough one. Answer everything is hunky dory and tone alone would have to give the clue.

I do the crossword puzzle every day, and I’m noticing that many of the answers seem too easy. Most of these are historical, but for me, they’re like yesterday as I lived through them. I can imagine a twenty or thirty someone sitting and mulling. In my day, they’d chew on the eraser and mull. Now, I guess they sit at the keyboard. I can’t believe that sitting at the keyboard gives the same sort of help that chewing an eraser did. I was able to fill in every square, and I also did the cryptogram in a short time this morning. I felt smart.

Rhetorical questions were the bane of my childhood. “What do you think you’re doing?” sounds like a legitimate question but giving an answer was talking back. It took me a while to sort that out. “Who do you think you are?” was another one of those questions to avoid. It was usually asked when I’d already done something wrong, something above my station. My mother was a master at the rhetorical question. As soon as she asked, “And who do you think is cleaning that up?” I headed to get the whisk broom and the dust pan.

My mother was also the queen of quilt. She got us every time. When she’d ask us to do something and we’d say in a minute, my mother went into her theatrics. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself,” she’d say oozing with self-pity and disappointment. We’d scurry to get done what she wanted. Sometimes, though, she’d add to the guilt by saying, “Too late. I’ll do it myself.” That was a heavy burden to carry, and she knew it. My mother was a master at her art.

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“But mothers lie. It’s in the job description.”

March 19, 2013

The snow started last night and left about an inch before it stopped. The rain started early, before I woke up, so now we are a slushy place. I left watery footprints from the house to the driveway and back again when I went to get the newspapers. The birds aren’t even around. They don’t like this weather any more than I do and the filled feeders aren’t at all tempting. I have three quick errands today and have mapped out the shortest route so I can hurry home to warmth and coziness.

My sister got around 10″ of snow, and she is welcome to her winter wonderland. My father would call my snow poor man’s fertilizer. I never knew what he meant then I found out it is a spring snow when the ground is soft. It is good for crops and helps everything turn green. The nutrients and moisture in the snow penetrate into the soil and benefit the plants that will grow later on in the year.

Poor man’s fertilizer got me thinking about sayings and pearls of wisdom I don’t hear any more. I think they’re generational, and many disappear when each generation is replaced by the next. My mother had a whole arsenal of things she’d say to us. We were all pretty much subjected to the underwear accident warning, but there was also the peril of going outside with a wet head because we were bound to catch a cold. A little “birdy” told me drove me crazy. I wanted the source, and I knew it wasn’t any bird. A few times she was talking to brick walls, and she found that annoying. Her next question was,”What are you, deaf?” One of my favorite warnings was,”Don’t touch that. You don’t know where it’s been.” I was a kid. Where it had been was of little consequence. Because she was squeamish we were denied the pleasure of some wonderful find. If I told a lie, my tongue would turn black. I dare not make a face as it might just stay that way, and I was afraid I’d have to wear a hat with a veil the whole of my life. I would never join my friends in jumping off a bridge. I’d have to find one first. My town had no bridges. My favorite, though, was always the,”It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.” My mother could pick up even the tiniest hint of sarcasm. Though I was too young to know the word sarcasm I knew the tone she meant. I said it on purpose.

I still turn out the lights when I leave a room, and I keep the outside door shut. My mother always reminded us in that voice none of us wanted to hear that we didn’t own the electric company and we didn’t live in a barn.

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“Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.”

February 4, 2011

The sun is shining. It has been gone a long while. I missed it.

In my town, this time of year, there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff to do so winters found us inside far more than we liked. The theater had one matinee on Saturday, and it was usually filled though the balcony remained empty by choice of the owner: too many opportunities for flying candy missiles. The bowling alley was another choice, but that was really expensive to a kid on a 50 cent allowance. You had to rent shoes then pay for alley time. Begging for a bit more money from my mother sometimes helped. It was candlepin bowling. You know, those little balls, because that’s what every bowling alley around here had. I was never a very good bowler. Beyond those, there was nothing outside the house for a kid to do on freezing winter weekends when it was too cold to be out for too long. On the warmer days, though that seems an oxymoron, we could skate for free at the town rink or at the swamp.

I think we drove my mother crazy when all of us were stuck inside the house. Teasing little sisters was fun, but they always screamed to my mother who yelled some threat back to us should we continue. Most times my father was mentioned in the threat. That was enough to make us stop. My father was usually the parent we wanted to avoid when it came to punishment. He’d whack us; my mother seldom did. She was more the screamer. Later when when we were older, she’d occasionally throw things but we always ducked and ran away laughing but not so she could hear us. That would escalated the situation which, for all intents and purposes, had ended with the toss.

When we were in our teens, my father grounded us, but it never lasted for long. He’d tell us we had to miss some important event, one which we’d circled on the calender or bought new clothes for or had been planning for months. We’d cry and stomp our feet but it was all for show. We knew he’d make us stay in our rooms until close to the event then he’d come upstairs and tell us we could go, but it better not happen again.

It my mouth which got me into trouble. A quick wit is not to be used on angry parents or anyone in authority. I was a slower learner. I just couldn’t help myself. I was thrilled when I got old enough to be funny without being sent to my room.

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